Author Archives: ELECTIONLAWCENTER.COM

Political Activists, Artists and Students Registered to Vote at Democrat Senator’s House

“Eight voters registered with the city clerk’s office currently cite state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark’s address as their own, five of them unrelated to Fuller Clark.


Vice president of the state Democratic party, Fuller Clark said she has a long history of opening the doors to her large Portsmouth home to political activists, artists and students, while explaining she and her husband are “just very hospitable.”

Full story about the very hospitable Senator Clark here.

Prediction on Voting Rights Act Fix

Here’s my prediction on a “fix” post-Shelby.

Yesterday demonstrated that the defenders of the unconstitutional law aren’t familiar with bipartisan compromise.  “Bipartisanship” to them means Republicans giving Democrats whatever they want.  Worse, their handmaidens in the left-wing press like Andrew Cohen and the peculiarly dishonest Ari Berman saw fit to personally attack people (Me, Chairman Franks, Steve King, Hans von Spakovsky) rather than debate our ideas.  Slate misquoted my testimony, flagrantly.  This demonstrates an ill will that might have worked when Democrats held the majority.

The most telling moment of the entire hearing is when Rep, Jim Sensenbrenner left the room.  The Democrat’s beachhead into the GOP withdrew. Sure, there was as “scheduling conflict” but priorities are priorities.

Unless Democrats and their shills like Berman tone down the rhetoric and accusations – absolutely nothing will move through Congress post-Shelby. 

If Nadler and others approach the matter in good faith, and are willing to make concessions, perhaps on the Section 5 standards relating to the insertion of the word “any” into 5, then a revision of Section 3 is possible to include discriminatory results, and maybe more.

Given the fact that handmaidens like Berman and Cohen are hard wired to attack, and given the fact that groups have vowed to get “loud” (cf reasonable and approachable) I suspect nothing will happen. Moving a Shelby fix through Congress will depend on whether or not the scorpions can stop being scorpions, and I know how that story ends.

Left Uses Shelby to Seek Massive Expansion of Federal Power

The greed drips off the pages of the Washington Post today.  After the Supreme Court found Section 4’s exercise of federal power unconstitutional, the Left uses the ruling to seek… more federal power. Norman Ornstein’s greedy wish list for expanding federal power:


●A separate federal ballot. Congress has the clear constitutional right to manage federal elections. A separate ballot for federal races strengthens that control. Other advantages include no more confusing butterfly ballots; there would be no more than three races (president, Senate and House) on a federal ballot. No more provisional ballots or access denied if someone shows up at the wrong polling place; the vote would still count only for those federal offices.


●A new voter registration regime. The United States is the only major democracy where the burden of registering to vote is on the citizen. The default should be that eligible citizens are presumed registered, with same-day voter registration available for those not registered via their draft registration or driver’s license. Ideally, Congress would provide the funds to modernize voter registration lists and create a 21st-century voting process in which voters could get personalized ballots printed, with all the offices they are eligible to vote on, at any polling place in their vicinity. Why shouldn’t Americans be able to vote at any nearby polling center?

Texas Rep. Kevin Brady on VRA ruling: “Justice Department has held certain states like Texas hostage to their political whims”

U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady (R-TX), the Deputy Whip in the House of Representatives, released this statement regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling citing Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional:

“This decision by the Supreme Court is reasoned and long-overdue. For too long the Justice Department has held certain states like Texas hostage to their political whims by using a legal bar that is impossible to clear. The bottom line is that voting rights are important and should be applied equally to all states, which the Supreme Court has confirmed.”  


Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf on VRA ruling: “Extra federal oversight has been costly and there’s been a lot of delay”

In the Sun Gazette, a Virginia paper, Congressman Frank Wolf commented on the Supreme Court ruling on the Section 4 formula for the Voting Rights Act:




…Wolf, who said he was the only member of Virginia’s delegation to vote for reauthorizing the act in 1982, said the United States has changed in the intervening decades.



“I don’t think there’s discrimination now in state of Virginia,” Wolf said. “I think in the areas I represent, it’s totally honest and ethical. It’s more open and honest than in many areas of the country, including some big cities. I think the act has been successful.”



Virginia localities now will not have to undergo unnecessary steps when making minor election-related decisions, Wolf said. “The last couple of years, it’s been a work product for lawyers,” he said of the extra federal oversight. “It’s been costly and there’s been a lot of delay.”